Almost losing OJ

I have an old friend whose life story is so wrought with conflict, struggle, and peril that the New Yorker ran a cover story about it. his name is OJ he is now a professional electrician and a father. the first time i met him he threatened me, which is something he denies, oddly. but i remember clearly, that I was with two other friends, Ages and Wei. we were waiting for a third friend, Zar, out in front of his building. OJ was living with his aunt at that time and it just so happened to be in the same building as Zar. So there we were, standing on the corner passing time. when from around the corner comes OJ, riding a skateboard right by us. We were skaters back then so naturally we stared at him, he was about 13, while we were about 15, so we were bigger then him by quit a bit. that didn't bother him though, because as soon as he detected our stares, he spun around on the board and rode right up to us.

his first question was simply "whats your fucking problem?". we were stunned by his directness, as well as his audacity, as we liked to think of ourselves as appearing somewhat dangerous to most people. Ages, a gregarious Dominican from the Lincoln projects answered flatly, "fuck off kid." that's when OJ drew a small pocket knife. needless to say, we immediately liked this kid. how could you not? so we threw him down (that means we made him a member) with our crew, NBC (nation's best creations)

it was all fun and games, being young lunatics, until one day when we got the idea to go subway tunnel bombing in the middle of the day. i think i was about 16 and he was 14. we were hanging out one wintry day down near my mom's house in the village. i guess we had managed to rack a large amount of paint (that's how a real writer gets his/her paint. steal it from a hardware store. writers who buy their paint are actually just creative fruitcakes). we wanted to do some serious bombing with our latest haul. i am pretty much positive it was his idea to go hit the tunnels. it made sense at the time because it was the afternoon and even OJ wouldn't go daytime bombing in the village. it's just too much light. so we decided to go down through 14th street and head south on the uptown side.

it's surprisingly easy to just casually walk to the end of the platform and when nobody is paying attention, just disappear into the darkness of the tunnel. once you're in, the only danger comes from, of course, the trains, and the occasional crew of work bums (the guys with the reflective vests are usually not too nice to writers and are always armed). the only problem with the dark wet musty tunnels, is that the spots that are worth tagging, are all window level on the subway car, and just under the lights that happen about every 100 feet or so. these spots were only possible on the two walls on either side of the tunnel. the pillars in the middle are way to thin and aren't illuminated enough to be seen. in order to hit high enough, you had to climb up onto the ledge where there is a small space between the tracks and the wall, mostly for the workmen to use when trains pass.

down at 14th street there are 4 separate tracks, 2 up and 2 downtown. i started hitting the east wall and OJ decided to cross the four tracks, jumping over the third rails carefully to get to the west wall. within a few seconds of his crossing i heard the sound of a quickly approaching express train. i turned to see where he was and saw him running across the third track. the train was moving so fast that when i yelled to him it was already so loud that there's no way he would have heard me. so that train whips by, and to my relief, i was sure it was on the track he had already crossed. but then, before that one was even finished passing, the train in the opposite direction rolled through. and then the local on the farthest track. so, there were three trains passing at around the same time. i had no idea if OJ had made it across yet, and i kind of doubted it. the local train blared it's horn, which in that tunnel, was so loud it shook my already shaking rib cage.

i couldn't believe what was happening. all in an instant, i might have just witnessed my friend's demise. as the last of the three trains faded off into the distance, and the tunnel returned to its dark and silent state that it had just been in moments before, i started to half yell, half whisper to OJ. i got no response. i dropped my paint and quickly ran along the ledge south, trying to see if maybe he had ran further then i thought he had had the chance too.

nope. he wasn't up ahead either. my mouth was drying up from the panic that was bubbling up from my belly. where the fuck was OJ?! what the hell should i do? its at this moment that i realize that i am not some brave warrior marking my territory, but just a dumb kid who is in a place he really isn't supposed to be. i was also a kid, who might have gotten his friend killed by a train. possibly the most horrible way to die i could think of at the time. i knew somebody whose mom had commited suicide by jumping in front of one, and that had sparked off all kinds of imaginings about how that must have gone down. metal, flesh, wheels, electricity. it was a horror movie turned real. it was at that point that i noticed bobbing lights coming from the south. it was work bums, probably alerted by the train of somebody in the tracks.

my flight instinct kicked in and i ran north, back towards 14th street. i ran out of the station, covered in dirt and without my paint. i ran for my friend's life. i had already decided that i was going to go straigh to my mom. she always knew what to do in a situation, and would also defend me from whatever wrath i might have exacted by going down there. after all, she was a lawyer for children in the court of manhattan. so i ran the few blocks to my house. i turned the corner on my block, and there he was. OJ was sitting on my stoop with a shit eating grin on his face. "Yo, dude".

"what the hell happened OJ?!" i was so happy to see that he was ok, that i hadn't thought to be angry at the fact that he was NOT still in the tunnels answering my calls.

"I saw those trains, dipped back to your side and just ran south to Christopher street station and then headed here. hey, what happened to your paint? I don't have enough for the two of us"

So OJ became something of a mascot for my crew. he was always in the middle of any shit storm and he always had something fun to do for us. He was also a great guide, if you needed to go down into the tunnels on riverside because he was on friendly terms with the homeless people who lived in make shift shanty towns down there. I remember coming back from college in wisconsin as a sophomore. just walking down broadway, soaking up the city in all its glory, trying to re-center my sense of belonging. when i noticed a crowd forming out in front of the burger king on 81st street. i walked through it to see what was going on. it was OJ with some guy in a headlock. it looked like he was doing alright so i was like "OJ, whazzahhh?!" he looked up at me, smiled, and between head punches said "Zen! you're back, gimme a sec." and i knew i was home.

OJ is still around, he is even more himself then ever. it's great to witness his incredible longevity. his propensity to baffle statistics and remain alive and strong. he's had some seriously close calls. he probably just had one right now, while i was writing this.